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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology pp 1–12Cite as

Rock Art, Lovo

Introduction

For decades, the notions of rock art and prehistoric art have been immediately associated with the famous paintings in the caves of Altamira, Lascaux, and now Chauvet. However, all over Africa, rock paintings and engravings abound. The oldest of these naturalistic rock images are dated to about 30,000 years ago in Namibia, while the ornamentation of rock shelters is still alive today in many places.

Unlike the richly documented rock art of the Sahara or southern Africa, that of sub-Saharan Africa often remains poorly known, or understudied, despite having been reported as early as the sixteenth century – and well before the first discoveries of prehistoric art in Europe (Heimlich 2017). However, a few notable exceptions remain, with the hundreds of circular petroglyphs of Bidzar in Cameroon, the schematic engravings of the Ogooué Valley in Gabon, the representations of throwing knives from the Central African Republic, or the rock images of the Lovo Massif in the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Travaux et Recherches Archéologiques sur les Cultures, les Espaces et les Sociétés (TRACES, UMR 5608), Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, Toulouse, France

    Geoffroy Heimlich

  2. Institute of National Museums of Congo (IMNC), Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

    Clément Mambu Nsangathi

Authors
  1. Geoffroy Heimlich
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  2. Clément Mambu Nsangathi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Geoffroy Heimlich .

Section Editor information

  1. Departament de Prehistòria, Història Antiga i Arqueologia, ICREA/Universitat de Barcelona/SERP, Barcelona, Spain

    Inés Domingo

  2. "CONICET - AIA - UBA Asociación de Investigaciones Antropológicas", Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Danae Fiore

  3. Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany

    Ewa Dutkiewicz

  4. Departament de Prehistòria, Història Antiga i Arqueologia, ICREA/Universitat de Barcelona/SERP, Barcelona, Spain

    Inés Domingo

  5. "CONICET - AIA - UBA Asociación de Investigaciones Antropológicas", Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Danae Fiore

  6. Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany

    Ewa Dutkiewicz

  7. Departament de Prehistòria, Història Antiga i Arqueologia, ICREA/Universitat de Barcelona/SERP, Barcelona, Spain

    Inés Domingo

  8. "CONICET - AIA - UBA Asociación de Investigaciones Antropológicas", Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Danae Fiore

  9. Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Germany

    Ewa Dutkiewicz

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Heimlich, G., Nsangathi, C.M. (2021). Rock Art, Lovo. In: Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_3559-1

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